


turning and returning

by weatheredlaw



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, Love Confessions, Mild Language, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 20:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4362266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"You take my breath away," she said dryly. "Is that better?"</i>
</p><p>
or: In which Varric might be the only dwarf who can airbend, and that makes life increasingly difficult until, one day, it doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	turning and returning

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, the title is from Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" because I am 80's music trash. Also I have no idea what this is, I just know bending AU's are an important part of my life.

It used to be funny, the way people were always surprised by him. When he was a boy, he'd make big shows of it, and Bartrand would always get angry, always ask what he was playing at, letting people know what he was. Varric hadn't understood, then, not until he was older and some surface boys beat the snot out of him and left him by the docks. Not until some stuffy mage thought he was some kind of _experiment_. Not until Bartrand told him, just pretend you can't bend at all, please, Varric, _please--_

So Varric kept it hidden. He kept it hidden until Hawke, and that's when everything changed.

Hawke had a way of doing that.

 

 

 

The Inquisitor was a waterbender, like most of the Trevelyans seemed to be, and she was a good one at that. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place, though, literally, and it was two waterbenders, a firebender, and _Varric_ , who wasn't even paying attention. He hated rocks. 

"For the love of--" Dorian kicked another stone out of the way. "Maker's ass, just _ask_ the bloody dwarf to move the damn things."

Cassandra raised an eyebrow, looking over at Varric and saying nothing. Varric, for his part, remained quiet and smiling. A perfected skill. Trevelyan cleared her throat.

"Uh, Varric? Would you mind--"

He put on the face -- it had always been so _easy_ to put on the face. "Sorry, your worship. But I'm not an earthbender."

"Okay, we'll just--" Trevelyan stopped, turning and narrowing her eyes at him. "It isn't funny to _lie_ about _this_ , Varric."

"I'm not," he said, as coolly as he could because she was young and didn't know better.

"It doesn't matter," Cassandra said. "I see light up ahead." 

Varric said a silent prayer as they stepped into the sun. 

He hated this, sometimes.

 

 

 

Eventually, Trevelyan found out, because a cliffside was a _shit_ place for a fade rift, if you asked Varric. She'd been knocked back by a ghoul pushing too close to the edge -- and no one else was watching and Varric wasn't going to let her _fall_ because of a promise he'd been trying to keep for his crazy brother. He dropped Bianca and pushed the air behind the Inquisitor, _hard_ , shoving her forward and away from the edge. When the rift was closed, she turned to him, because even though she was young, she was brilliant and clever and careful and observant -- 

And kind. She was incredibly _kind._

"What you did for me today," she said quietly, finding him in the hall.

"I didn't do anything."

"I know you'll want to keep pretending, and I know there must be a _reason_ for it, but here--"

"I'm not interested in dealing with this. I'm good with my hands, I'm good in a fight, you don't need much more than that, right?"

"You're an _airbender_. And you're a dwarf! It's not like you see that every _day_ \--"

"Yeah, I'm aware." She flushed and looked down at her hands. "You're excited. I get it. But--"

"Josephine thinks she's all alone, you know. Airbenders just...they aren't around the way they used to be."

"Inbreeding," Varric quipped, but Evelyn didn't think it was funny. "Maker's selection, I guess they call it. We need people to move stone and make fire and heal with water, but air is...we just don't need it that way."

"Well." Trevelyan stood and put a hand on his shoulder. "I think we do."

 

 

 

Josephine was alone in her office when Varric knocked, and she was surprised to see him. "Your new book is _wonderful_. I'm torn between asking for more and writing to my friends to make them envious." Varric laughed and pulled up a chair in front of her desk. It was an unscheduled, unexpected visit -- though with Josephine, very few things went unexpected -- and he wasn't surprised to see her eyebrow go up, just a bit, before leaning forward on her desk and smiling. "You need something, don't you?"

"Nothing I couldn't get myself." He matched her stance and they were both staring one another down across the suddenly wide expanse of her desk. Varric had never felt so close and so far. All they didn't have in common, tossed together with the one, grandest, _greatest_ thing they did.

She tried again. "You have a secret, then."

"Maker, we have a winner."

Josephine clapped her hands together, jewelry ringing like a bell. "Tell it to me. You didn't come to tease."

"I--" Varric's mouth was dry, and Josephine's expression faltered. Maybe he'd made a mistake, maybe he shouldn't have done anything, maybe he--

"Should we go somewhere else?"

"No. We shouldn't." Varric realized he couldn't say the words, couldn't spit out, _I'm an airbender, we're the same, let's wallow in our solitude together_ \-- so he leaned back, borrowed the air from the open window, and knocked over her paperweight.

The _sound_ she made would cure him of ache for years.

"You are _not_."

"I am."

"But you--"

"Dwarf, I know."

She shook her head. "I've _heard_ , the usual of course. Dwarven firebenders, that group of waterbenders from Hightown, but I never--"

"I've never met another," Varric said quietly. "I've met airbenders, sure, but dwarvish ones?" He shrugged. "Looks like it's just you and me, Ruffles."

Josephine stood up, going around to the other side of the desk and grabbing his hand. "Come."

"What are--"

"I haven't had someone to _properly_ bend with in _years._ My sisters are all waterbenders. It was my father, you know, and when he--"

"Josephine."

Her eyes were so bright, her expression so unfalteringly _hopeful_ that Varric couldn't help but surrender, and let himself be dragged about the halls, until they burst into one of the empty courtyards that still hadn't been victimized by the quartermaster's contracts and stammering. Varric felt uneasy. "What if someone sees?"

"You surprise me, Master Tethras. I thought you might--" Varric looked her right in her eye and she stopped. "It's been very hard for you, hasn't it?"

"You've got no idea."

Josephine smiled. "Let it all go, then. There is no one to judge you here."

 

 

 

"You _knew_ ," Evelyn said, trying to hold back her disappointment. "You _knew_ and didn't say anything?" 

Solas only shrugged. "It was quite obvious."

"Take it easy, Chuckles. You'll bruise her ego, too."

"I am not _bruised_ ," she muttered, stomping off into the bushes. "Smarty-pants elves and secret-keeping _airbending_ dwarves. Mother always _told_ me I'd get myself in way over my head one day." She went off, grumbling to herself while Varric laughed.

"You've been working with our ambassador, have you not?"

"My combat skills were a little rusty. She's got some years of experience on me."

"You may do well to look at other types of bending for inspiration," Solas says. "Water and fire could help you. Myself or Dorian are good places to look. Lady Pentaghast another."

"Yeah, I'm sure the seeker will engage in some combat training with me right after she finds the nearest thaig to drop me into."

"She is not so angry anymore."

Varric laughed. "You clearly don't know the Seeker."

Solas looked at him. "Sometimes I don't think you do either." 

 

 

 

Cassandra was sitting alone in the tavern when Varric approached her, hackles raised and body on the defense. He wondered if she was always like that, or if he was a special circumstance.

"I am not in the mood, Varric."

"Well, that makes two of us." He sat across from her, setting his drink on the table. "You could have told everyone what I was."

"It was not my place to tell."

"But you could have," Varric said again. "You could have and you didn't."

Cassandra looked at him, draining the last of her wine and tipping her head to the side. "What do you want, Varric?"

"I'm not... _good_ at the fighting stuff. When it comes to the bending," he added quickly. "You want me to fill a thing full of arrows, I'm there. You want me to kick some doors in, whatever. I'm your dwarf. But I can't...I haven't done it in so long. Not for anyone but me, and alone, I guess. It's just--"

"Solas suggested this, didn't he?"

"He talked to you?"

"Not directly. He talked around it, which I _detest_." She folded her arms over her chest. "I can show you some things Josephine wouldn't know. Some moves that would translate well to your style of bending, for the most part. If you're willing to learn from me."

"This isn't how you finally kill me, is it?"

Cassandra smiled. "I suppose you'll just have to take that risk, won't you?"

"Good play, Seeker."

"Yes, well." She raised her glass and a girl came around to fill it again. "I have a very clever opponent."

 

 

 

Dorian _laughed_ at the burns Varric had on his shoulders. Laughed and took water from the bucket between their feet and healed them carefully. 

"Play with fire--"

Varric ground his teeth. "Don't you _dare_ finish that sentence."

"Only trying to _help._ "

 

 

 

Cassandra became an unlikely sparring partner for all things bending for Varric. Air and fire opposed each other nicely, and sometimes made something else entirely. Varric was pretending he couldn't hear Dorian's poking and prodding, about how complementary their styles were, how elegant they looked together.

Varric ignored it because he agreed, and he wasn't in the business of agreeing with Dorian Pavus on matters of the heart. Or something like that. 

"Maferath's _balls_ \--"

"Language," Cassandra said, and offered out a hand to help Varric off the ground after a particularly grueling session. "You don't really need me anymore. Why do we keep doing this?"

"It's fun, isn't it?" Cassandra nodded, taking off her gloves. "I need this. I...I really do." She glanced over at him and offered up a rare smile. Varric's stomach did a flip. "You're a good partner."

"We make a good team, I suppose," she said, giving in. They walked slowly back toward the tavern, but Varric wasn't feeling up for a drink, and when he asked her if she'd like to grab some food and walk through the renovated gardens, she agreed.

Sitting with plates of chicken in their lap, a bottle of wine between two glasses, Varric almost forgot that his back was hurting because Cassandra had kneed him right below the kidneys, or that he would probably have a smattering of scars across his shoulder to add to the collection, if only because he hadn't been quick enough to dodge her fireball. 

"What are you thinking?" she asked, filling her glass again.

"That I never even wanted to _be_ in a place like this, and here I am." He looked at her. "It's liberating."

"You're good at it."

"Doesn't make sense. Never had any practice. Bartrand wouldn't let me, and he was afraid of what people outside of Kirkwall would think. Better the assholes you know than the ones you don't, I guess." Cassandra shrugged. "Hawke made it different."

"He's good at that."

"One of his many talents." Varric set the plate aside. "Was your brother a firebender?"

"He was not. Anthony could not bend. Pentaghasts rarely can. When they do it is usually fire."

"Comes in handy with dragons." _Only just_ , Varric thought. All the bending in the world couldn't take down that _thing_ in the Approach. He shuddered at the memory, but Cassandra shook her head.

"It was considered poor form to use firebending against dragons. Cheating. Brute strength was your only asset. Anything else would cheapen the kill."

"Doesn't seem fair."

Cassandra made a noise and it took Varric a moment to realize it was _laughter._ "I think you of all people should know a bit about _fairness._ "

 

 

 

Varric had never thought he could use his bending for anything other than combat. Earthbending dwarves used it for work, and when they weren't in the mines, it was for battle. Bending for pleasure, or for the benefit of others was considered poor form, though it didn't stop an enterprising man like himself from hosting competitions every so often. Still. It was against known traditions. As an airbender, there were no traditions for Varric to borrow from, and he realized, sitting in a cave with the Seeker as her chest rose and fell unnaturally, he would have to start crafting his own.

"She's going to _die_ ," Trevelyan said. She'd twisted her hands in her lap so hard Varric thought they might snap off. "Maker, what's wrong with her?"

"I've flushed out the toxins," Dorian said. "I've done a dozen other things. Her _lungs._ I have no idea what's in them, but I can't fill her lungs with water we need--" 

Varric yanked his coat off his shoulders before Dorian could even finish the sentence. The mage began to laugh, panicked and hopeful all at once, and urged the Inquisitor back, to give him more room. 

"You can do this," Dorian said, and Varric nodded. 

It was one thing to push against Cassandra while they sparred. He'd become intimately acquainted with the way her legs moved, the the way her arms formed the shapes to create the power she needed. He'd imagined her bending while lighting the lyrium in a man's blood on fire and it...had _done_ things to him.

This was intimate, he realized. Different than fighting with her. Different from the bickering. Varric concentrated on the air around her, the air she was shakily pulling into her lungs and painfully pushing out. He brought it in, and he imagined the cavity of her lungs swelling with each breath, and he urged it to move faster. She opened her mouth, making a pained gasping noise, but did not wake up. Still, her lips remained parted, her tongue pink against the brown of her mouth, and when Varric pushed the air in her lungs out, she hacked and sputtered until whatever she had taken in was gone. Varric urged it out of the cave, and Cassandra sat up with a gasp, pausing only to retch right in front of Varric, inches from his shoes. She looked up, embarrassed.

" _Maker_ , forgive me I--"

" _Cassandra._ " The Inquisitor wrapped her arms around the Seeker and pulled her in. "We thought you were going to _die_ , do you know that?"

"They're spores," Dorian said. "Poisoned, I suspect. I'll give our enemy credit. They are coming up with new and smaller ways to inconvenience us. Lucky for them we've got a secret airbender."

"Varric's not a secret anymore. All of Skyhold knows," Trevelyan said.

"Yes," Varric said dryly. "No thanks to you."

"And Josephine. She'll tell anyone who'll listen." 

"Probably shouldn't have given her a manuscript of your new book," Dorian chuckled. 

 

 

 

A few evenings later, Varric sat in his room, trying to think of the best way to describe _Cole_ to Merrill, when Cassandra knocked and then simply came in. 

"You could have waited."

"For you to pretend you weren't here? I'll take the chance some other time."

Varric sighed. "What can I do for you?"

"Nothing. I came to thank you. What you did for me in Empris--"

"Anyone would have done the same."

"Maybe," she said, nodding. "But they _couldn't_ have. You were uniquely equipped. I've never regretted having you here, Varric, but I am especially grateful for it now." She paused. "I should leave you."

"You could stay," Varric offered. "I've...got some drafts you could look at, before you turn in."

Cassandra pulled her hand away from the door. "I would like that." She sat on the edge of one of Varric's armchairs, hands very still in her lap. Varric handed her a copy of the manuscript for a new story he was going to send off to his editor. Another romance, darker in its telling, but with promises to be kept at the end. As Cassandra began to read, she began to relax, leaning back in the chair until she had kicked off her boots and drawn her legs under her. She drove Varric a little mad with the way she rested her thumb between her teeth, not biting, just with a bit of pressure. He stared because she was engrossed, but when she looked up, he couldn't bring himself to pull away.

"Varric--"

"Do you like it?"

"It is...different from your other works." She smiled. "A firebending _dwarf?_ Are you branching into semi-autobiographical territory?"

He lifted a glass of wine from his desk and laughed. "I may be."

"Is that why your earthbending warrior is suddenly named Cassandra?"

Varric _choked._ He choked and spit wine onto the floor and Cassandra _laughed._ "I didn't, she's not--" Cassandra handed back the manuscript, and Varric saw that she was right, and he had, in the haze of writing, accidentally dropped the Seeker's name into the story. 

She was taking it all very well. 

"I am well known for being unapproachable, Varric. And sometimes even unreasonable." She leaned forward and took the papers from his hand, sliding her own against his palm. "But never unkind, and never adverse to the feelings of another. Particular someone I have grown...rather _fond_ of."

"You're talking about Blackwall, right?"

"Varric. You could dispense with the sarcasm for just an evening, you know. There is no reason to guard yourself against me."

"Because you don't breathe fire or anything."

"I did that only once. You enjoyed the sight."

"I enjoy the sight of everything you do," Varric said quietly. When he leaned forward, he didn't have to work as hard as he thought he might -- Cassandra laughed and met him in the middle, her lips parted in a smile.

 

 

 

"You know, Bull said Dorian set their curtains on fire. Your restraint is impressive."

"You were not _that_ good," Cassandra said, but Varric pressed his teeth gently against her shoulder, and she moaned, indicating otherwise. "Dorian's use of fire is taught, it is unsurprising he cannot control elements of his magic the way he does with bending." She sighed and turned her head to kiss him. "Would you like me to set your room on fire, next time?"

"Preferably not. But it _is_ nice to know my talents don't go unappreciated."

"You take my breath away," she said dryly. "Is that better?"

" _Airbending_ jokes. I didn't know you had it in you."

"I would prefer if _you_ were in me," she said, and flipped herself to straddle his waist.

Varric decided to stop talking.


End file.
